Mage Hero Defined TP Volume 1 Matt Wagner 1st Print Image

Description

Mage The Hero Defined TPB (1998-2001) #1
Published Jul 1998 by Image.

Volume 1 – 1st printing.
Collects Mage: The Hero Defined (1997) #1-4.
Story and art by Matt Wagner.

He’s a man with a mission, a mystical baseball bat called Excalibur and a magic ATM card. He’s gone north to hunt up some nasties… or are they hunting him?

Picking up several years after the end of The Hero Discovered, the story follows the continuing adventures of the reborn Pendragon, Kevin Matchstick, who wields the powerful, magic baseball bat, Excalibur. Hercules, Hiawatha, and King Arthur unite for the first time ever-all under the guise of everyday fellows in t-shirts.

Softcover, 96 pages, full color.

The series is about Kevin Matchstick who seems to be a modern day incarnation of King Arthur the Pendragon but Matt Wagner, while staying fairly true to the Arthur cycle, weaves in heroic figures from other myths and some autobiographical material. The result is both epic and sweeping and yet intimate and personally compelling. The middle cycle (Mage the hero defined) concerns Kevin Matchstick using his power to defend light and finding out the limits as well as the responsibilites such power represents. This all sounds typical and didactic but Wagner’s simple and powerful storytelling ability keeps the whole thing fresh and exciting and fun to read.

Wagner’s style for this series is very distinctive. While most superhero sagas feature huge larger than life figures that look too herculean to be even remotely human. Wagner has a looser and softer style that retains an element of the heroic but all his characters are definitely human scaled. He uses deep vivid almost primary colors that stunningly reflect the various actions and moods of the strip. He keeps his compositions simple but powerful reflecting his narrative line. On the whole an amazing achievement and distinguished from most graphic novel work being done by other artists.

Definitely worth hunting down all four parts to the Mage the Hero Defined group of novels and searching out the now out of print Mage the Hero Discovered group. There has been talk of a movie based on Wagner’s work which might mean a reprint of these books. It has stalled in development but we can only hope!!

Collects Mage: The Hero Defined (1997) #1-4. Minor wear, 1st print.